Abdoulaziz Al-Hassan during his trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on May 9, 2022. PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW v AFP
According to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Abdulaziz Al-Hassan left behind a large amount of damning evidence. At the indictment on Tuesday, May 23, Deputy Prosecutor Gilles Dutertre asserted that he had “ample” evidence to establish “the guilt” of this former Islamic Police commissioner in crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 2012 during the occupation of Syria, northern Mali were committed by jihadist groups.
The armed organization Ansar Dine, founded by Iyad Ag-Ghali in late 2012 and according to the indictment “a proxy” of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is bringing Timbuktu into a regulated break. Originally from the region, Abdoulaziz Al-Hassan was one of the recruits responsible for liaising with the local population. But it is fear that reigns. The city is changing radically, witnesses said during the three-year trial. “Everything became haram overnight,” said one of them. No more dancing, music, football, alcohol, cigarettes, magic spells, television…
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At the Malian Solidarity Bank (BMS), the new commissioner Abdoulaziz Al-Hassan then fulfilled his assignment with “zeal”, the deputy prosecutor continued. His own cell phone number, 79 26 23 92, is posted on the gable of the building as a simple request for information. “It is clear, it is not complex”, specifies Mr. Dutertre, “Al-Hassan clearly adheres to the intentions of Ansar Dine and AQIM to establish their power and their control over the population and especially over women.” The accused ” is an important part of the global system of persecution,” asserts the prosecution. It is “ubiquitous”, “indispensable”. In Timbuktu “he calls out, he patrols, he arrests, he interrogates”.
“Interrogated and Tortured, but in vain”
There are the thirty-nine police reports that he writes and signs “which also mention the use of torture if necessary”. “It’s spelled [dans un rapport] von Al-Hassan: “Interrogated and tortured, but in vain,” quotes the prosecutor. There are also videos, like the one where we see the accused whipping a young man. During another tour of a market, he is filmed ignoring pleas for clemency from a woman on the ground who is being whipped by another man.
Other images available to judges but not shown in court show Abdulaziz Al-Hassan watching an execution. He “is so zealous, he is doing so much and so well in the eyes of the leaders of Ansar Dine and AQIM that he will become Emir of the Islamic Police in late 2012, early 2013,” explains the deputy prosecutor.
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The prosecution spent minutes examining the fate of Timbuktu women and girls, who were often raped and sometimes enslaved: “For months they will live in a constant climate of oppression, insecurity and fear.” They are harassed daily, on the streets, in Schools, in hospitals and sometimes even in their own homes. »
“The Nightmare Cell”
The ATM of the Malian Solidarity Bank, which has become Abdulaziz Al-Hassan’s headquarters, has been dubbed by some women as “the cell of the nightmare”. The police sometimes hold women and girls there for weeks in the sweltering heat. They don’t even take you to the toilet. “Six months later, when the prosecutor’s forensic expert was there, the smell of urine was still there,” says Mr. Dutertre. He also quotes one of the witnesses who “gave the impression that these jihadists harbored hatred of women”.
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Behind a mostly female legal team, Abdoulaziz Al-Hassan listens without batting an eyelid, hands clasped. I, Melinda Taylor, says her client joined Ansar Dine seven months after the cast began. Her client had no other choice, and “when you start working for Ansar Dine, leaving the group is not an option,” she specifies. His wife had just given birth to a child, which would have made escaping to Mauritania impossible. Above all, he was a “Tuareg,” adds the Australian lawyer, and he was targeted by the Malian army, she assures us.
This trial is the second the ICC is conducting for the demolition of the Timbuktu mausoleums. Another jihadist, Ahmad Al-Mahdi, was serving a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty to war crimes for destroying the mausoleums of the city’s 333 saints. The verdict of the ICC judges regarding Abdulaziz Al-Hassan will not be announced for several months.